Dogs and Leishmaniasis on the Web

Abstract

The death of a young girl in a supposedly non-endemic region of the country was causing some concern. Clarisa Palatnik (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) stated that at least 7.4% of local dogs are seropositive by immunofluorescence (and the test is insensitive and mainly detects only symptomatic dogs) but while canine control there is impressive, a canine epidemic may well precede a human one. She wanted a campaign of public education about the need to identify and eliminate infected dogs and was worried that the results of scientific investigation are ignored by public health authorities. Heitor Franco de Andrade Jr (Instituto de Medicina Tropical de Sao Paulo, Brazil) said education about sandfly control was also needed. He was sorry about the dogs but no treatment is effective and ‘leishmania-static’ drugs are expensive. He was also worried that vaccination might induce resistance to disease but not to infection. Marian Ulrich (Instituto de Biomedicina Caracas, Venezuela) asked why, as she knew of work suggesting that vaccination induced enhanced susceptibility to visceral leishmaniasis rather than the development of a carrier state. He replied that he was arguing by analogy with the results of treatment, when dogs may become asymptomatic but still carry parasites (see J. Alvar et al, Canine leishmaniasis: clinical, parasitological and entomological follow-up after chemotherapy, Ann. Trop. Med. Parasitol. 88, 371–378, 1994).